What sports are your favorite? Is it football? Is it baseball? Have you realized how the number of women in men-dominated sports has increased behind the scenes?
Football has always been seen as a sport that only men can play, but it’s not true because women are just as capable as men in anything. As a woman, I didn’t know about the achievements of women within the NFL, and you also lacked knowledge on the topic.
Women started to play football in the 1960s. Five years later, in 1965, Sid Friedman founded the Women’s Professional Football League (WPLF). In 1999, the WPLF had its first football game with two teams, the Lake Michigan Minx and Minnesota Vixens.
Therefore, another women’s football league includes the Women’s Football Alliance (WFA). The WFA was founded in 2009, and it started with 36 teams. According to the WFA, they were the “first women’s football league to play a National Championship in an NFL stadium, as well as the first women’s league to broadcast its games on national television. In addition, over 15 veteran WFA players have earned coaching and scouting positions in the NFL, including Katie Sowers (San Francisco 49ers), the first female to coach in a Super Bowl, and Jennifer King (Washington Redskins), the first female African American coach in the NFL,” (WFA).
The history of women in the NFL goes back to the 1980s. One of the first women working in the NFL was Susan Spencer. She was vice president, legal counsel, and acting general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles. She goes down in history as the first female general manager.
Thirty-two years after the first female general manager, the NFL finally allowed women to play in the NFL. 2012 marked the first year women can begin trying out and officially working for the NFL.
Lauren Silberman was the first woman to try out for the NFL in 2013. She tried out as a kicker, and unfortunately, she didn’t make the team, but she broke down a gender barrier, showing women they could do the same.
However, in 2016, the number of women reported in the NBA was 31 women; 30.2% were employees, and 26.5% of the vice presidents in the league were women. Compared to the most recent report from 2022, the number of women working in the NFL increased by 11.1% since 2016. About 41.3% of women work in the NFL, with 319 women in various roles.
Some women who have made history in the NFL include Sandra Douglass-Morgan, Sarah Thomas, and Jennifer King. All of these women serve a range of roles for the NFL teams, from president to referee, and half of them work on the field while the other half work more behind the scenes.
In conclusion, women have been in the NFL for years but are underrated. The news also barely covers the topic. Some reporters try to refrain from discussion because of how controversial it is. To learn more, look at my news roundup, highlighting more achievements of women in the NFL, social media’s reaction, news coverage, and some things the NFL is doing to shed light on women’s flag football.
Christion Billy 